Flight 370 passengers' relatives, Malaysian official meet

Associated Press

Published 6:56 pm, Sunday, April 20, 2014

Photo: Mohd Rasfan, AFP/Getty Images

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

A Chinese relative (C) of passengers onboard missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 reacts as she arrives during a briefing at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur on April 20, 2014. The effort to find missing flight MH370 is at a "very critical juncture", Malaysia's transport minister said on April 19 as authorities mull whether to reassess a challenging search of the Indian Ocean seabed that has so far found nothing. AFP PHOTO / MOHD RASFANMOHD RASFAN/AFP/Getty Images less

A Chinese relative (C) of passengers onboard missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 reacts as she arrives during a briefing at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur on April 20, 2014. The effort to find missing flight ... more

Photo: Mohd Rasfan, AFP/Getty Images

Flight 370 passengers' relatives, Malaysian official meet

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Perth, Australia --

A Malaysian official met Sunday with relatives of passengers who were aboard the missing jetliner and discussed ways of providing them with financial assistance, as an unmanned submarine continued its search for any signs of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Hamzah Zainuddin met with the passengers' relatives in Kuala Lumpur to talk about next steps. Financial assistance was discussed and family members were urged to submit a plan for consideration. He declined to elaborate further, but said a fund could possibly be set up by the government or Malaysia Airlines.

President Trump addresses nation after mass shooting at Florida SchoolWhite House

The relatives, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the meeting, saying in a statement that until "at least a tiny bit of concrete evidence" that the plane crashed is found, authorities should not try to settle the case with final payoffs.

After nearly a week of sweeping the bottom of the ocean with sonar, the unmanned sub began its eighth mission on Sunday. The device has yet to uncover any clues that could shed light on the mysterious disappearance of the plane more than six weeks ago.

The U.S. Navy's Bluefin 21 has journeyed beyond its recommended depth limit of 2.8 miles to comb the seabed off the coast of western Australia. Its search area forms a 6-mile radius around the location of an underwater signal that was believed to have come from the aircraft's black boxes. The search center said the sonar scan of the seafloor in that area was expected to be completed sometime next week.

Meanwhile on Sunday, up to 11 aircraft and 12 ships continued to scan the ocean surface for debris from the Boeing 777, which disappeared March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Radar and satellite data show the jet mysteriously veered far off course for unknown reasons and would have run out of fuel in the remote section of the southern Indian Ocean where the search has been focused.